


everything is going to be alright, no bribery needed pt2

by blazingmushroom



Series: music runs in the family [2]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Banter, Cause there will never be enough momgwen fanfics, David Acting as Max's (Camp Camp) Parental Figure, Max (Camp Camp) is a Little Shit, MomGwen, NOT m/a/x/v/i/d, Teaching your son how to play an instrument pt2, dadvid, lotsof it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 12:01:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20488547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazingmushroom/pseuds/blazingmushroom
Summary: "You've improved so much in the past few weeks!""Only 'cause you've guys been shoving lessons down my throat ever since I've picked up this thing."





	everything is going to be alright, no bribery needed pt2

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TacoPanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TacoPanda/gifts).

> It's Gwen's turn in teaching their son to play the uke.

"What are you doing here?"

"Wow, good morning to you too." Gwen plopped down next to Max, making him scoot down the dock to give her some room. "Ay, what's with that face? I don't bite."

"Wow, how convincing." He mocked back, his shoulders visibly going lax. "What happened to the happy-sunshine fuckface? Don't tell me he broke our deal."

"We switched activities for the day, nothing you should worry your little head about. And don't worry about him or whatever this 'deal` business is." Ignoring the way Max began to squawk at how she dared assume that he would ever be worried about her co-counselor, Gwen continued, "In the two years that I've known the guy, I have never seen David go back on a promise."

"Whatever, I don't give a shit." If anything, Max was only a tad disappointed that they wouldn't have their ukulele lesson today. David told him that he would be teaching him about strumming patterns today, but he guessed that plan backfired. "So what are you doing here? Were you sent here to retrieve me or some shit?"

Gwen stopped him before he could get up from the pier, "Hold your horses." 

"Isn't that what's happening right now?" Max scowled, swatting off Gwen's clasp on the side of his hoodie. "He rescheduled, right?"

"Of course you would think that." Rolling her eyes, Gwen almost snickered at Max's quick assumption. "David had to take over today's activity. Therefore, I'm the one who's going to be supervising you today." 

Now that changed a few things. From what Max could recall, David mentioned how Gwen used to play the ukulele rather well once or twice. But David would only speak of those few past memories, never the present, which, from what Max assumed, was because there weren't any present ones. This frequently left Max with his own speculations. "I thought you dropped it, and never picked it back up?"

"Did David tell you that?" Shaking her head, Gwen gestured for Max to hand her his ukulele, which Max quietly obliged to. "I haven't done anything with it, or never quite performed for others, but I still play from time to time."

"He mentioned once or twice that he always wanted you to perform at the campfire," Max added, watching the way Gwen fiddled with her old ukulele. It was rather captivating, the way she would flick each string with a soft pluck or gentle tug. 

"And he probably told you how often I said no." She adjusted the tuning of the third string, noticing that it was a bit too high. " And how this used to be mine."

"Yeah." He murmured, looking down the docks to inspect the waters below. It almost felt intrusive of him to disturb the moment of nostalgia Gwen was undeniably caught in. With the way she was inspecting the strings for damage, it was obvious that she cherished the instrument. The fact that Max himself was the one to inherit the instrument felt strange now. Wasn't this something that a parent would pass down to their child, or something around that category? The fact that the two counselors were teaching him, of all people, something this meaningful to them was-

"Well, now it's yours." Gwen finished, handing the ukulele back to Max, who seemed startled at the abrupt interruption. He held it with a surprising amount of delicacy as if he thought a single rough touch could break it. "The strings might need to be replaced in a few months time, so keep that in mind."

"Wait, you're telling me that I can keep this?" Max wondered aloud, receiving an eye roll and a nod of confirmation from Gwen.

"No shit, Sherlock. What were you expecting?"

Max shot her the middle finger. "Fuck you, Watson. And I thought I was gonna have to return it, obviously."

"Well, then, know that we want you to keep, you little shit. David tells me that you 'get a kick` out of the lessons."

Max's face screwed up at the expression. "The fuck?"

"His words, not mine." Gwen readjusted herself once again to right herself up as if now was the time to get down to business. " Now, I think it's about time we stopped bullshitting and continued with the lesson. David tells me that you wanted to learn about strumming today?"

"Hold up, you're the one who's going to be teaching me that?" Max thought back to the memory where Gwen hit David in the face with his guitar. "Oh no."

This brat always assumed the worst with her. "Whatever you're thinking, stop. And what the hell is wrong with me teaching you? Do you actually prefer David teach you?" 

Max scrunched up his face and hummed in consideration, earning a 'fuck you` from Gwen. While David did imply that Gwen was better than him when it came to the ukulele, he could have just been sugarcoating it. 

What was he talking about? David definitely seemed like the guy to sugarcoat. Or maybe not. The shitface seemed like the type to only give compliments when they were sincere.

Either way, Gwen could be a better ukulele player, but that didn't immediately translate to a good mentor. Then again, Gwen would be able to handle his crude comments, and she might be able to guide him through what he could be doing wrong. 

"I can't believe we're actually going to be doing this." Max groaned, crossing his legs and angling his ukulele in a way that he could play it. "Now start teaching me, or whatever."

"About time." Gwen scooted closer to Max, a movement that he wasn't expecting. "Let me check something out first. Play a C-chord and-, no wait. Scratch that. Play me all the chords that you know. Currently. I want to see if you know the basics."

Max nodded and went through the small list of chords he knew. A few A-chords, G-chords, F-chords, and one or two E and F chords sounded out, with Max trying to remember the correct finger positioning. His index finger strummed up and down the ukulele while he focused. 

"Well, I'm glad to know that David taught you the basic chords before moving on with strumming." Noticing Max's curious glance, Gwen explained. "It's a tad hard to learn about the patterns since there's so fucking many. And it's not something that's often tracked down, cause there are different patterns for every song. Tell me, has he taught you how to play any songs yet?"

"I banned him from teaching me any campfire songs after he told me that he taught me all the chords in the Camp Campbell song." Max nearly shuddered at the memory. "So, to answer your question, no."

"Well, you're going to learn how to play a song by the end of today." Gwen finished off, coming up with the perfect song to teach her camper.

"Wow. You're jumping the gun." The prospect of learning how the put the chords to use was compelling, but Max was a bit unsure. "Wasn't the goal of this lesson to show me strumming patterns?"

"You got the basic down and up strumming memorized. We'll begin with other patterns another time. They tend to follow suit after you get used to it first. Besides, you're pretty good at the pattern so far. You'll get the hang of it."

Max pursed his lips and nodded. Somehow, hearing the praise come from Gwen instead of David felt odd, yet not uncomfortable. "Cool. Whatever." He said before he could do something as stupid as thanking her. "What song would you teach me, anyway?" 

"I'll tell you later." Noticing Max's unease once again, Gwen added. "I promise. It's nothing bad if that's what you're thinking."

"Right." Thinking back to the many different ways it could go wrong, Max warned her, "But I will straight up murder you if you teach me a meme song or some other garbage like that."

"I gotcha. But playing the mii song is pretty eas-ow!" Rubbing the knee Max managed to kick, Gwen pointed at the neck of the guitar. "Now I want you to play the C-chord, four times."

"I'm sorry, what?" Four times? The hell does that mean? 

"Strum down and up four times."

"And why the hell are you saying down and up instead of up and down?"

"It's strumming lingo. Strumming down and up aren't the immediate patterns. Some are down, down, up, up, down, up and so on. It's something you get a hang of as you practice. Now hurry up and start."

\---

The two practiced for nearly three hours, mainly taking longer due to other campers passing by them, intrigued. David passed by them as well and handed them both a lunch packet with some hot dogs and chips.

"How's the lesson been going?" he asked both of them, settling down in the middle of the dock. "I apologize for not being able to teach today, Max."

"It's fine." Max murmured, pausing in his strumming. "She's worse at teaching than you, though."

"Hey!" 

"Aw, thanks, Max." David ruffled the camper's hair, making him duck down to try and evade it, "That's pretty high praise, coming from you."

"You're not even going to try and defend me? And here I hought we were CBFL'S..." Gwen mocked, keeping an eye on the way Max actually seemed to lean into the touch. 

"Oh gosh, Gwen, I'm sorry. Max, you should know that-"

"David, I was kidding." It was rather touching that David apologized straight away. "I haven't been teaching him about strumming patterns though, but he does know how to play a song now."

"Really?" David retracted his hand and looked Max in the eye, who looked down to pick at the callouses developing on his fingertips. "What song?"

"I have no fucking clue," Max said bluntly, before glaring at Gwen, "Because a certain someone decided not to fucking tell me."

"We reached an agreement," Gwen said proudly, shooting Max a smug grin, which he returned with a crude hand gesture. "And he's been doing well. We encountered some knicks in the system, but we handled it well." She left out the part where Max's finger started to bleed after playing for so long. 

David laughed at the playful exchange between the two. "Well, I'm glad that you both seem to be enjoying yourselves. I think you should both take a lunch break. You can join us as First-Aid Camp whenever you find the time."

"Hard pass. I'm going back to my tent after this to sleep, and none of you are stopping me." Max picked up a hot dog and started tearing off bits and pieces of the bun to eat. 

"That's fair." David allowed, passing a hot dog to Gwen. "We're going to meet at the campfire tonight, so make sure to be back by then, or else one of us will get you."

"Whatever."

After flashing Max a smile, David nodded at Gwen in goodbye and left for the activities field.

Gwen took a moment to examine the camper she spent the last few hours supervising. Max was being oddly compliant today. And while that was a welcome change, it was still a bit startling. He almost seemed, at the very least, happier. He was still an evil little shit stain, but ever since the lessons began, he seemed to actually enjoy himself.

Hell, Gwen never thought she would see the day where Max would enjoy a camp activity, but here it was happening. 

Admittedly, it was pretty fucking cool, and she could say so herself. She could clearly remember the first time she ever played this song. She wasn't able to find any tutorials for it online, so she had to improvise and try to identify every chord in it. Thankfully, it was rather simple, since it had only four basic chords needed. 

And the fact that she was teaching this song to Max of people was fucking epic. So yeah, maybe she was kind of fond of the kid. He was rad to be around. 

"Take a picture," Max said, talking with his mouth full, after noticing the stare Gwen was giving him.

"Swallow your food before you speak." Gwen impulsively scolded, earning an eye roll.

\---

Nights around the campfire were always eventful.

By accident, there seemed to be an unspoken tradition for everyone to sing along as David played campfire songs on his guitar. And while the tradition was, without a doubt, entertaining, it was currently the bane of Max's existence.

"Max?" 

Max gave no indication of hearing the call of his name and sat between David and Gwen. Now sat in between them, he pulled out his ukulele and positioned it into his playing position.

"Our agreement." Max hissed out to Gwen, who smiled smugly at him. "I play, you sing."

"I don't hear any playing." Gwen shot back, making Max grumble in return. All eyes were now on them, especially after Max started plucking the strings to catch their attention.

"Gwen?" David questioned, receiving a tilt of the head in response. With the vague response, he turned to Max for an explanation, who jabbed him in the side with the headstock of the ukulele.

"This is only because you talk about Gwen's singing so much," Max reasoned. "Because I couldn't fucking take it anymore."

"Oh, Max-"

"Also, I still have no fucking clue what this song is."

Still, to David, it was the thought that counts. 

"You fuckers better listen closely." Max spat out to the campers, before strumming a C-chord to start the song. "Because this is only gonna happen once, and I fucking mean it."

-

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated! (please) (i have homework tomorrow. why the hell did i write this.)


End file.
